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Verdict: A manipulative but absorbing and deeply satisfying adaptation of Stephen King's prison novel.

Details: Starring Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan. Rated R for violence, language and some sex-related material. 3 hours, 2 minutes.

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Review: You know the makers of "The Green Mile" are doing something right when you find yourself getting teary-eyed over the fate of an injured mouse. At the same time, you can't quite ignore how shamelessly, if skillfully, you're being suckered.

Five years ago, writer-director Frank Darabont struck gold with Stephen King in his adaptation of "The Shawshank Redemption." Now he returns to the same author and a similar prison setting, inflating King's serialized novel into one of those achingly long prestige films positioned to win end-of-the-year awards. Darabont has Spielberg-ized the movie, giving it a bookend time frame, and taffy-pulled its slim plot to run more than three hours. (Darabont was an uncredited writer on "Saving Private Ryan," which shares this picture's length and wraparound structure.)

"Mile" is exactly the sort of package Oscar voters love: It has period costumes, the kind of burnished cinematography that screams "quality," a script that flirts with big questions (race, justice, morality and mortality), a hefty dose of late-1990s New Age spirituality and, most importantly, Mr. Oscar Bait himself, Tom Hanks.

There's also this really cute mouse.

Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, head guard on death row of a Southern prison in 1935. His cellblock is called "the Green Mile" because of the lime-colored floor the prisoners walk one last time on their way to Old Sparky, the electric chair. The newest inmate is a pile of muscle called John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan). Despite his size, he's a tremulous, childlike thing, scared of the dark; it's hard to see him as a man convicted of the brutal murder of two little girls.

The enigma of Coffey's identity is at the core of "Mile," which gradually reveals his supernatural healing abilities. The movie also spends time with other prisoners, including the sociopathic Wild Bill (Sam Rockwell) and the calmer Eduard Delacroix (Michael Jeter), who strikes up a friendship with a mouse he calls Mr. Jingles.

The real rodent of the movie is neither a mouse nor a prisoner. It's Percy (Doug Hutchison), a sadistic, sniveling guard despised by Paul and his colleagues, Brutus (David Morse) and Dean (Barry Pepper). Percy's fascination with the executions makes Paul surmise, "He just wants to see one cook up-close."

Thoroughly rotten, Percy is an example of the film's main weakness: overdetermined characters. We spend three hours with these people, but no one changes, develops, does something surprising. They remain who they are from first appearance to last, like characters in a puppet pageant. Coffey, in particular, is rendered into a mythic emblem rather than a man. (In case you miss the symbolism, take note of Coffey's initials.)

Near the end, "Green Mile" verges on the touchy-feely territory you get from Robin Williams dramedies. It's so determined to make you cry that you pretty much have to submit. Otherwise, you might realize that you've just paid for a manipulative blend of aw-shucks mysticism, melodrama, socially conscious uplift and jokes. As unalike as all these elements are, Darabont marshals them with remarkable skill. The connecting tissue is the melancholy shadow he casts over the whole movie, a hint of autumn and inevitable decay that pays off at the end with a poignant reinterpretation of what "the green mile" means. His work is like a conjurer's trick. You know it's all fake, and it shouldn't work. But while you're watching, you can't keep your eyes off of it.

Besides its mystic main plot, the movie offers ample comic relief, such as that mouse, or in the discreet depiction of a bedroom marathon between two spouses whose sexual problems have been remedied by Coffey's magic hands. Darabont doesn't shy from the horror, either. The movie's gross-out centerpiece is a suspensefully built scene of an electrocution-gone-wrong that sends witnesses scrambling in panic. (It may also make some viewers reconsider their stand on the death penalty.)

The movie's secret weapon is an impeccable cast. Hanks provides his patented everyman charm, while Duncan, Jeter and Rockwell all do sharp work. James Cromwell is touching as the warden, trying to manage his jail while coping with personal tragedy. And Bonnie Hunt, usually tapped as comic relief ("Jerry Maguire"), provides a lived-in sexiness that elevates her small role as Paul's supportive wife.

Even the tiny roles are superbly cast. Gary Sinise turns up for one scene as a lawyer. Graham Greene has a blink-or-miss-him part as another prisoner, while Harry Dean Stanton steals scenes as a crusty trusty. Patricia Clarkson appears as Cromwell's fading, ill wife, a far cry from her standout turn as a German junkie in "High Art."

Is "The Green Mile" a work of art? Not really. But it's a superior piece of manufacturing, meticulously crafted, absorbing and beautifully acted. Folks are gonna love it. Like most of King's books (even the ones that scare the trousers off you), it's resolutely square at heart. And it's deeply satisfying, even when you know it's all a bunch of hokum.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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